At the 11-1-93 town council meeting, after being hammered to stop the freeway oriented Ralphs by about 150 members of the community, each member was individually polled and said "gee I personally really don't want Ralph's market. Bruce Bell has publicly opposed Ralphs from the onset. Later at the '49er Morris, Masden, Howald, Daniels, and Olmstead renounced their opposition to Ralphs and said to the effect that they were going to ignore the community and support the Ralphs store.
They do not intend to do anything to stop Ralphs or to testify against Ralphs.
Town Council's claim "Brink approved it".
At the meeting they tried to say that Brink pushed Ralphs through. A letter from Mr. Heidt which was all that Bruce Bell could find in the "public files" of the Council thanks Kathy Howald and Dick Morris in coming to their aide at the "eleventh hour to save the project".
What is not said in this letter is what problem did Ralphs have to overcome at that eleventh hour. The problem was Brink's opposition at the hearing. So their position that it was approved by Brink is another of the town council lies.
In the beginning, I was for the project as Ralphs and Heidt assured us that the store was solely for the community and they would not install street lights and sidewalks unless forced and would assist us in our opposition to the County, would handle the added runoff with no effect to the down stream community during any rain from a light mist to a 50 year storm. They also agreed to provide proper styling, light control and a single free standing sign no more then 25 feet high. Further, to get the council's support they agreed to "Director's approval of all tenancies with the opportunity of the Town Council to comment on the proposed tenancies with the Director of Regional Planning to have the final approval.
As 75% of the property was existing commercial without any control or restriction this added control and restrictions made it seem like a good idea.
Board of Supervisors hearing
At the Board of Supervisors hearing on the project, Heidt and Ralphs removed all limits and conditions which they had promised to the community. I testified now opposing the project because of the removal of these conditions which made the project acceptable.
Morris and Howald supported Ralphs and Heidt in the removal of all those conditions because "the council was not a policeman" and the "community did not need the limits" because we could trust Heidt and Ralphs. That was the 11th hour support that Height was referring to in his congratulatory letter to Howald telling them how wonderful and helpful they were. See the letter on this page.
Further, when they talked about speaking to Pat Bell, Pat in an interview after this letter was made public, states that she never spoke with Kathy Howald and the letter is a figment of Kathy's imagination.
The CUP for off site Alcohol Sales
When the CUP for the liquor license came up Ralphs was no longer a community business but a 24 Hour Freeway oriented shopping center that would brook no limits of any kind. So much for trusting Ralphs and Heidt.
But now the contrite town council says gee I really didn't want Ralph's, so what are they going to do about it? Next time a developer wants them to do something they'll say well I guess we can accept it and then we'll tell the community later on that we really didn't want it.
It's time for the community to rise up and demand a free public election. Let the public decide who will represent them. Decide if people who lie, either to Ralph's in the terms that they want the project, or to the community in the terms that they don't want the project, pull them out. How many other projects are they doing the same way to destroy Acton? What other lies have they told developers about Acton? What other things have they withheld from the community?
Don't let your anger go away now just because they contritely said gee we've changed our minds about Ralph's. These people don't have any minds, they don't have any opinions. They simply are there for personal power and anything they can do to oppose what the Vanguard wants or suggests, they'll do. They care nothing about the people.
On the proposition A issue with the massive over charges for taxes for the park bond, was anyone from the town council at the public hearing? No!
Do they care? No! They simply are there for their own personal gratification. They can't be trusted and they must be removed from the council now or else we will lose our community. We must go forward with an election to replace them and do it quickly. The election should be done and supervised under an outside neutral third party and all persons who are registered voters in Acton should be able to run for the town council positions including past members of the town council. If you really want to know, yes I will run for one of those positions.